Paul looked at Wilhelm and Schrotter, but as they were silent he said nothing.  Schrotter after consideration, said: 

“Why do you separate a part of the eternal principle from itself?”

“To make its unity manifold through divisibility, to arrive at the consciousness of the ‘ego,’ through the creation of an absolute negation.”

“Your eternal principle then,” said Schrotter, “appears to you like some lord or master, who is lonely because he is by himself in the world, and wishes to have the society of others.”

“Over this, however, is placed the creation of the negation arriving at the consciousness of its own ‘ego,’ in addition to the knowledge of the object it has in view; thus consciousness precedes the rest,” said Wilhelm.

Dorfling shook his head.

“These objections are close reasoning.  You will find them answered in the book.”

“You are right,” said Schrotter, “it is unfair to criticize before we have read the book.  I only want to make one remark, not in the sense of criticism, but rather to confirm a fact.  Your “Philosophy of Deliverance” is no other than a form of Christianity which looks upon the earth as a vale of tears, on life as a banishment, and on death as going home to the Father’s house.  The theology of the Vatican would not find a hitch in your system.”

“Forgive me, doctor,” answered Dorfling.  “I see a great difference between my system and Christianity.  Both of them hold that life is a misery, and death is the deliverance.  But Christianity does not explain why God creates men, and sends them to the misery of earth, instead of leaving them in peace in heaven.  I, on the contrary, claim that I explain the creation of living and conscious beings.”

“Your assertion then means that the eternal principle of phenomena creates organisms, with the object of arriving at the consciousness of itself?”

“Exactly.”

“Now, we have already answered you as to that,” said Schrotter, “and I will not keep back my objection any longer.  Let me get away for a moment from your system, and say that between metaphysics and theology I do not see the least difference.  A metaphysical system and a religious dogma are both attempts to explain the incomprehensible secret to human reason.  The negro solves the riddle of the musical-box, believing that a spirit is inside it, which gives forth musical sounds at the white man’s command; and that is precisely what priests and philosophers do when they explain the great workings of the universe by a God, or a principle, or whatever they call their fetich.  Human nature always wants to know the why and wherefore of things.  When we are not sure of our ground, we help ourselves by conjectures, or even by imagination.  These conjectures are senseless or reasonable, according to whether our knowledge is insufficient or comprehensive.  Men are satisfied in their childhood with stories as explanations of the world’s mysteries, in their maturity they advance to plausible hypotheses:  the stories yield to theology, hypotheses to philosophy.  Religion presents a fictitious solution to the riddle in a concrete form, and metaphysics in an abstract form; the one relates and asserts, the other argues and avoids the improbable.  It is only a difference of degree, not of character.”